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Go Daddy Reverses Course On SOPA
An anonymous reader writes "Go Daddy has relented in the face of public pressure and will no longer support SOPA. 'Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation—but we can clearly do better,' Warren Adelman, Go Daddy's newly appointed CEO, said."
Go Daddy was put under a tremendous amount of pressure from around the internet; a boycott had been organized for Dec. 29th, and several major sites threatened to pull their domains from Go Daddy, including Stack Overflow and I Can Has Cheezburger. The U.S. House Judiciary committee posted a list of companies who support SOPA (PDF).
"Not supporting SOPA" isn't the same as "taking a stand against SOPA."
I want to see them actively lobbying against it now, instead of just taking back what they said. Then maybe I'll have some respect for them. I still plan on transferring away from them as soon as I can.
I've already transferred all of my domains and their mea culpa is meaningless. The damage was already done when they supported it. They didn't change their mind. You and I both know they still support SOPA and will continue to do so. The only difference between today and yesterday is that, today, they don't have a page on their website saying they support it. This is lie your cheating wife saying that her affair with some dude behind your back is over - now that she's been caught - while the truth is she's just telling you it's over and she's actually continuing to cheat behind your back.
I should have left GoDaddy ages ago. I just couldn't find an affordable alternative that wasn't sketchy and didn't really want to deal with the trouble of the process. This just finally put me over the edge.
... who stand to profit from the implementation of SOPA.
(Referring to the list of supporters)
-- A change is as good as a reboot.
I am not interested in doing business with a company sufficiently clueless about the Internet that they would ever have supported that bill.
If they are that unclear on what the Internet is or why it matters, they can go be clueless without me.
I think we've reached the point where it's time to remember that the purpose of copyright is not to ensure absolute and perfect control, it's to give good enough control that people can figure out a way to make money doing creative work. You know what? People are making money doing creative work. We're done. The "problem" of piracy isn't a problem, any more than the expiration of copyright was a problem.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I'd never heard of either of the previous issues. Their commercials were scummy, but they started them after I'd already started registering domains with them, and it was convenient to keep all my domains in one place, and bad commercials aren't enough to make me leave a product that's working for me.
However, this news put transferring my domains as part of my to-do list for the weekend. This reversal doesn't change that: It says they can listen, but not that they can think. Otherwise wouldn't have taken the position they did in the first place.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
this 180 turn
This is not a 180 degree turn. It is a grudging submission to their customers on one issue. A 180 degree turn would be for them to oppose SOPA and to challenge the notion that imposing traditional copyright onto this new and incompatible medium is the only possible way to promote the progress of science and the useful arts.
This is maybe a 60 degree turn, and I'm being generous.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
And barring that, I'd like to see them do the right thing now... which, given the visibility they have with congress, is NOT to quietly sit in the back row and remove their blatant pro-SOPA propaganda... it's to go in and tell congress "We're losing all our business just on the THREAT of SOPA passing. I think we may want to kill this thing and come up with something that doesn't negatively affect everyone who uses web sites." Then to start lobbying in that direction, and start speaking out against the ways SOPA is harmful.
This isn't how I expect GoDaddy to respond, but this is the only way they'd gain my respect.